


The Gentle Wind that Moved the Unmoving Boat

by ultravioletharte



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: F/M, The Dark Dragon and the Happy Hungry Bunch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 15:45:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3697892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultravioletharte/pseuds/ultravioletharte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaya, a girl with consumption, and her short life before and when she met Zeno, the Ouryuu.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When We Met After The Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kou (Rietto)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rietto/gifts), [MurkyMuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurkyMuse/gifts), [sorasan0000](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorasan0000/gifts).



> As the summary have said, it's about Kaya and Zeno. The story will use both their perspectives.
> 
> This is my first fanfiction on AO3, so please feel free to give comments and suggestions to improve this story. (And yes, if possible, I will continue editing and adding more details to this now I-don't-know-yet-how-many-chapters work).
> 
> And yeah, guys, brace your tissues and hearts for the feels.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

It was raining in the mountains, which has been her quiet sanctuary.

It has been for years, ever since the village doctor found about the consumption. She remembered its ravages: her mother and father, coughing red on the ground, with some of their neighbors being the same. Taking care of them was not hard; after all, she loved her mother and father, and like the others, desperately tried to save them. She tried them all: the herbs, the potions, anything the whole village tried to get, as they also have loved ones they want to spare from bodies thinning because of the disease, from the gaunt faces, from the incessant pain in the chest and lungs, from the sound of never-ending coughing that can only end in one way.

But it only ended with fifty bodies, including her mother and father, to be burned, their ashes and souls going to the skies, a ceremony that is one of the few methods Kouka Kingdom knew about purifying the land, to keep consumption from spreading. But even that did not keep the disease from spreading into her.

And when she and everyone saw her coughing scarlet stains, she knew she will be, too, going to the skies swifter than the others.

With a heavy heart, she packed her belongings. The villagers wanted to take care of her; even the chief wanted her to live in his house, as everyone knew her of her never-ending support in their previous battle against the disease. But she would not risk them. She cannot let the others know of the pain she felt as she saw her parents waste away.

And so the village gave her a cottage in the mountains, far enough so as not to infect others, but still near enough so that they can send her something: food, medicine, no matter how small the amount. She was grateful for it, but she knew their support will stop sooner or later, as everyone knew that they must not risk the disease from spreading. 

She was fortunate her parents were farmers. They knew what herbs to pick for medicine, what to plant and what fruits to pick for food, what traps to use to hunt small game, and they have taught her well. The mountains, as if the gods have given her a small respite, were bountiful in its land, its water, its plants and its animals. She knew she would never be hungry nor thirsty in the last days of her life.

But she was hungry for companionship. Not that she did mind it too much; the songs of birds, the mountains brooks flowing quietly provide the tranquil sounds that broke her loneliness in many ways. But she missed the village, with their festivals, the merchants that come and go, the friends who greeted her Good morning, the village chief who smiled and patted her head. She missed her parents. And she missed the fact that only a few years ago she was not alone, where everyone called her name, not this silence which the passing days made her forget, bit by bit, who she was.

Kaya, don’t mope while planting, your frowns might cause the vegetables to wilt, her parents would say.

“Kaya,” she said. “Kaya. Don’t mope. Kaya. Kaya.”

But tears, along with the rain, were flowing down her face when she saw him, the fair golden-haired stranger, on the road near her small field, with scarlet stains on his cloak and clothes.


	2. The Small Boat that Tried to Sail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys! Thanks for reading this work! I edited the first chapter also, so that they could be a bit parallel to this new chapter, which comes from Zeno's perspective.

Was he still alive? He hoped he was not.

But the incessant gnawing at his stomach and the throbbing arrow wound at his back said otherwise. 

It was funny, considering he could still feel hunger and pain, but his body as a whole never showed how time had passed.  
And time had passed. He had stopped counting the years that went by, after he was chosen as the holy dragon’s warrior, when that blood he drank from the Ouryuu seethed and burned, in him and his three companions, to serve and protect the red-haired dragon-king of Kouka, their kind and loving master, Hiryuu, who became human, and with their help, unified the scattered tribes and founded the kingdom. Time had passed for all of them: the days when Abi, the Seiryuu, and Shuten, the Ryokuryuu, were fighting over small things, when Guen, the Hakuryuu, patted his head and called him a kid, when Hiryuu gave him the medallion he still wore in his neck. For he was still a kid, an unchanging seventeen-year-old, despite the many sunsets have passed, despite that Hiryuu has returned to the heavens, and that Abi, Shuten, and especially Guen, has joined their master there. For him, time has stopped.

But not for Hiryuu Castle, and Hiryuu’s successor, and especially his generals and officials. 

The current king liked him enough, and being the high priest, his power and influence has quelled a lot of rebellions. But talk about him from the court had become incessant. They resented his influence as the remaining dragon warrior in the castle. They resented his never-changing appearance, which as they have white hair and weak knees, he was still the same as when Hiryuu passed away. They resented his power, whereas they expected him to die on that bloody battlefield the day Guen died, he was alive, unharmed, the yellow dragon scales giving proof of what others call as heaven’s blessing, but for him, it was an eternal curse.

They resented him. And so the whispers came and went, where they caused the discord between him and the king, where he was almost kidnapped by spies from another country, where the bribes came in from doctors and men of power seeking his immortality. The only one who did not resent him was his young apprentice, a poor doctor’s son whose wisdom and ability to hear the gods’ voices made the child valuable to him. So he shed the mantle of high priest to this doctor’s son, who offered more prayers so that he could go to heaven like his comrades. 

It was a wonder, though, that even if Abi, Shuten, and Guen have passed on, the presences of the Seiryuu, Ryokuryuu, and Hakuryuu were still in Kouka. 

He did not know why they were still there. Probably because of that promise by their master, that when the darkness falls upon Kouka, the red dragon will rise again to awaken the dawn, or so as his apprentice said in a trance. 

And so he followed Hakuryuu’s presence in the mountains north of Kuuto, the capital.

There he saw a small village, a village who venerated the dragons. He tried to conceal his presence among the trees, the pouring rain making it easier to hide. Some of the children there have white hair, like Guen’s, playing in the rain. But one of them, his hair cropped and silver-white, had the dragon claws on his right hand. 

“Hakuryuu!” he shouted to the child, appearing from the trees where he had hidden himself, but the arrows came, and the swords from the villagers charged at him. He tried to parry them and looked at the child, making his blood call for the new Hakuryuu.

But the only reply he got from the child was a blank look.

And so he ran, the arrows following him, one of them piercing his back. He ran away from them, wishing, hoping, praying that he could run away from the world, from himself, to the skies where the others were.

But his knees were weakening. His head was foggy, just like the rain now pouring. His memories were getting foggy, too, like it would vanish, just like the mist in this rain…

Remember that we are brothers bound by the dragon blood. Just like Hiryuu, we will go back to the heavens, Zeno, his dragon brothers said, before they left him, before the time when he never saw them again.

“I’m sorry… I… Zeno… cannot go back anywhere…”

And then he saw her, the black-haired woman in shabby clothes and a green scarf, as his tears fell on the muddy ground and everything went black.


End file.
